


Unexpected

by ThisIsLightful



Series: Begrudgingly I Care [3]
Category: Avatar the Last Airbender - Fandom
Genre: AU, Anxious!Zuko, Moral Zuko AU, Other, Sad, There are going to be a lot of canon divergences, caretaker!Zuko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 14:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsLightful/pseuds/ThisIsLightful
Summary: Zuko had been waiting what felt like his whole life for this moment. But he's been focused on the kids, on the world around him, he nearly forgot his mission.The Avatar.He'd been waiting. So why was he surprised?But he has to.For honor.





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I know it feels like I abandoned this and my other works, but I haven't! There's just... been a lot going on. I decided Zuko is going to frequently slip up and mother-hen random people and then get embarrassed over it. The kids don't feature so strongly in this one, but you'll see a lot more of them soon!   
> ALSO! Each installment's going to be around 1,000 words, so I'm sorry that they aren't longer :(

Zuko did not know what he had been expecting.

No, actually, that was a lie. The barren town filled with small children one old woman was pretty much exactly what he was expecting.  _ Extermination. The Northern Water Tribe must be extinguished. For the good of the Fire Nation!  _ These people lived and breathed and died with the hatred of the ghostly  _ gold _ that was Zuko. That was his father.  _ (Once, when he was five, his father had tried to care. He’d said “We’re the same. We’re fighters.” All of his atrocities are Zuko’s to bear. For the good of the Fire Nation, right?) _

__ A kid-- Zuko had lost the right to call himself a kid long ago-- ran at him. A blue blur and an angry snarl and  _ fear, fear is golden.  _ Zuko side-steps. Tries not to engage.  _ (On Fire Nation ships there are safety protocols that are put in place so as not to burn the ship down. In emergencies, those protocols can be turned off so that the ship can maneuver faster. As he fights this  _ **_boy,_ ** _ this  _ **_child,_ ** _ Zuko has to hold back his need to prove himself and the monster inside him that roars with the war handed down to him and prays to the Sun  _ **_safety on_ ** _ ).  _ The boy throws his boomerang. Zuko dodges. The boy has potential, but he isn’t fast enough, broadcasts his movements for the whole world to see. Zuko can’t help but create a training regimen in his head before shutting it down. It would be near blasphemous to teach a Northern Water Bender. An enemy.

HOLY-- It’s the boomerang again. And that’s it. Safety **off** he is going to--

His hand is on his hip, his mouth opens before he gives it permission to. “Really? I get that you want to protect your tribe, but there is only  _ one of you,  _ you absolute ignoramus. You should have gone for stealth because we are an enemy of unknown numbers and power,  _ first of all,  _ and secondly: if you made us angry we might have killed you! Be glad my Uncle preaches a philosophy of peace, otherwise you’d be ashes!” He storms over to the stunned, blue boy and wacks him over the head. With his own boomerang. Zuko could be petty.

Zuko takes him by the ear, “Now, young man--” He realizes what he’s doing, drops the boy, and blushes bright scarlet.  _ (There was a woman. She had bled in his arms, calling for her children. She was not the first, nor the last. But Zuko saw the vivid scarlet, clutched her as it dulled to rust. Faded like her, like memories and hopes and dreams and people.)  _

“Ahem.” Uncle steps in, giving him an amused look. “Apologies, but we are here because we believe the Avatar might be here. We do not wish to harm any of your Tribe. Have you seen him?”

The blue boy is shaken from his stupor, and he snarls, positively frothing at the mouth, “Peace? Are you serious?” He doubles over laughing. “You’re trying to capture the Avatar, the SYMBOL of PEACE, to kill him!”

“Well, we’d likely keep him locked up until he died, as to monitor him until his next incarnation.” Iroh is as blaise as ever. There is tea in his hands. He takes a sip.

Zuko breathes in. Breathes out. Calm. He is the embodiment of calm. He is the icy tundra around him. He is

Hitting his Uncle over the head for being a moron. “Not helping, Uncle!”

“Yippee!” There is laughter, orange and yellow and  _ airbending, it’s the Avatar!  _ And…

A kid. A bald kid with arrow tattoos and airbending, but a kid. 

“Heya!” The kid smiles. His eyes are innocent. He’s never killed or tortured or watched the death of civilizations. He hasn’t been training for almost a century. He picks his nose and tilts his head and leans on his staff. “Katara saw you guys coming, said you wanted to see me?” Something dangerous flashed in those grey eyes, steely and unlike his element. “Said you wanted to hurt these people?”

Zuko breathed in. Breathed out. Felt the flame inside his chest flicker uncertainly, suffocate him with the thick smog of his own guilt. “Avatar,”-- it didn’t matter what he wanted, though, because-- “If you come with us, we won’t hurt anyone here.” He had to. For the children. For his family. For honor.  _ (“You dishonor me with your weakness. Be strong, like your sister.”. “We fight for our honor. The airbenders and waterbenders continuously stifle our abilities, and have sullied our honor. For that, they were killed. Become the best you you can be, children, and bring honor to our great nation!” the  _ **_or else_ ** _ did not need to be said.) _

__ “Do you swear it?”

“I swear.” Zuko licked his lips, looked the boy in the eyes despite how hard it was to do so. His mouth was a tundra, so, so dry. He thought of the change he could make as King. He thought and thought and thought and his mouth moved of its own volition, “On my honor.”

The boy went with him. The blue children blurred into white.

For honor.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that I'm not going to exactly replicate scenes from the original if I could help it. So Zuko and Aang's dialogue is very different from the original, but with essentially the same outcome. It's going to be like this for a few more of these installments, but worry not! It'll diverge soon.  
> If anyone wants to co-author this, please tell me! I'd love to work on this with someone and it'd make it much easier for me to do updates if I had someone to do it with.   
> I get into anxious/depressive/manic fits pretty often, so if I don't have someone to encourage me to do things I don't have to do, I'll forget to do it. It's not really a decent excuse, but yeah.  
> Hope you enjoy!  
> Tell me what you think will happen in the comments! I love hearing all the interesting theories!


End file.
